TV review: Webdreams

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TV review: Webdreams

Oh what a sticky web we weave

By Ryan Fontaine on Sat, Apr 28, 2007 8:00 pm.

If you're like me and harbour a not-so-secret desire to mount your own Internet porno offensive, then Showcase's Gemini-nominated series Webdreams is probably nothing new to you. Season two is ramping up, though, and would-be entrepreneurs and everyday voyeurs alike have something to learn from the triumphs and follies of a new cast of web savvy dreamers.

This digital age is an exciting time for chronic masturbators, with X-rated global spending pegged at more than $57 billion. According to a recent study, 90 percent of 13- and 14- year-old Albertan boys report having viewed porn "too many times to count." The children are our future and the future is depraved. I can't wait.

Explosive growth in pornographic consumption combined with our insatiable appetite for reality TV has spurred multiple series focussed on the less-intimate details of those involved in the sex industry. Webdreams, like Showcase's related properties Kink and the UK import Porno Valley, gives perverts an entirely new spin on our favourite pastime. Instead of the endless poundings we've all seen before, the cameras are trained on the mechanics behind the scenes and reveal the players for who they really are: everyday people with everyday problems.

Who among us hasn't had to get prepped for an afternoon of girl-on-girl squirting (aka female ejaculation)? Well, as I learned from Webdreams, the trick is to drink a whole lot of water — almost enough to win a Nintendo Wii but not enough to kill you. Answers to questions about how to get your boyfriend to agree to 24/7 webcam broadcasts become second nature after just a few episodes.

For this season, the producers have remixed the formula with more of everything. The cast is mostly brand name, though, sadly, no one is particularly gay (barring requisite pseudo-lesbian dildoing). You may, however, be familiar with thuggy, hot-bodied Vancouverite Diesel (Diesellive.com). In a titillating twist and despite his gay-oriented site, Diesel starts the series in a committed relationship with a girl, an arrangement that's complicated when he sets out to work with trannies.

The rest of the cast includes a young couple with a painfully basic business sense who want to expand their oeuvre to include production. Then there's rock 'n' roll ass-man Uncle D, and 'net porn veteran Angelique who puts a new spin on old hat with some G-rated BDSM. The cast is rounded out with Violet Manson who just can't seem to get her site off the ground and The MSM Crew, a fledgling porn factory trying to eke out its place in the increasingly big studio niche porn market.

Somehow, the 12 half-hour episodes were shaped from a staggering 800 hours of HD footage (a supposed innovation which, by the way, delivers a level of intimacy no one really quite needs: Every ingrown hair, pancaked pimpled ass, airbrushed labia, nick and scar is amplified to THX, widescreen, hi-res perfection).

The horrors of HD aside, Webdreams is still a winner. Season two is shaping up to take everything that was great about the first run and better it all around. Check it out. You'll thank me when you're finally ready to launch that web-based porno empire, and hopefully learn something from these romantics' mistakes.

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Webdreams season two premieres Fri, Apr 6 at 10pm on Showcase. Showcase is also streaming full episodes of season one at Showcase.ca